1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a cooking grill, and more specifically, this invention relates to a cooking grill heated from a deep fat fryer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Fast-food facilities normally have deep fat fryers to cook items such as french fries. Also, foods such as hamburgers are now frequently cooked by devices such as chain conveyor broilers or charcoal grills, rather than a general purpose grill. While this approach works well for these foods, there are various types of foods, such as eggs, that are not readily susceptible to cooking by such devices. Thus, some fast-food facilities are limited in the types of food and the meals that they can serve. For example, they may find it difficult to provide a full range of breakfast foods, which limits the usefulness of their facility.
Separate grills could be provided, but this involves additional cost and space, with the attendant increase in capitalization and overhead expense. Also, the grills might be utilized only for a portion of the day. A preferable approach would be to utilize the available heat source (i.e., the deep fat fryers) to provide a heated grilling surface when required. Since the peak time usages for the deep fat fryers (e.g., lunch time or supper time) normally differs from the peak time usage of the grills (e.g., breakfast, when the deep fat fryers would not usually be required), this would provide a very desirable combination that would tend to maximize utilization of these components. Specifically, the deep fat fryers may be utilized as a heat source for the grills at breakfast. Further, since the cooking oil in the deep fat fryers must usually be kept heated for possible use, the heat lost when they were not in use could be put to work.
Two previous attempts to provide such a deep fat fryer grill have been made. One involves placing a grill plate on top of the deep fat fryer and increasing the temperature of the cooking oil to grill by heat radiated from the cooking oil. The other utilizes a grill plate floating directly on the cooking oil. Each of these attempts has defects that prevents successful use.
In connection with the first, the increased temperature of the cooking oil causes it to degrade (i.e., particles of the oil carbonize). This results in a lower smoking temperature that causes foods cooked in that oil to have an undesirable taste and smell. Also, of course, the increased temperature requires greater energy consumption.
With respect to the second approach, the cooking oil must be kept below the top of the vat or container, so that the insertion of food to be cooked does not cause the cooking oil to overflow. Thus, the grill plate must be small enough to be inserted into the top of the deep fat fryer. This reduces grill surface and prevents the joinder of adjacent grill plates. Further, the grill surface is not maintained flat as the grill plate floats on the cooking oil.
Accordingly, it would be highly desirable to have an effective system for converting a deep fat fryer into a grill.